'A good day' for Diné youth
Council approves reorganization of Navajo Education Division

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

WINDOW ROCK — Maybe it was the bottles of water with specially printed labels reading "Education is our strength" and "Vote 'Yes' Title 10" Navajo Nation education officials handed out to delegates inside the warm Council Chamber Tuesday afternoon that did it.

In the face of lingering interests to delay a vote on a sweeping package of amendments to the tribe's Title 10 education laws, the Navajo Sovereignty in Education Act squeaked by with just enough votes from the Navajo Nation Council.

After spending hours debating amendments to the bill the council shot down one by one, the delegates erupted in cheers as soon as the number 59 lit up in green lights on the electronic voting board, signaling that the act had secured just enough votes to pass.

"It's a good day," said Division of Diné Education Director Leland Leonard, who led his staff in drafting the act and vetting it with educators and parents across the reservation for over a year, after exchanging smiles and hand-shakes with some of the people who helped him.

Among the more dramatic changes proposed by the act is the creation of an 11-member board within the Education Division which will be renamed a department and the hiring of a superintendent in an effort to make the tribe's education administration look more like a state's. Once in place, it will be their responsibility to create new expectations of what schools serving Navajo students should be teaching and new ways of measuring how good a job those schools are doing.

The goal is simple: To narrow and ultimately close the historic achievement gap that separates American Indian students from everyone else. According to statistics provided by the tribe, American Indian students on average perform below every other ethnic group in the United States.

By taking more control of the education of their students, and designing their education more around their particular traditions and experiences, the Navajo Nation's education leaders believe that gap can eventually shrink and disappear.

"To the Navajo people, to the Navajo children, this is a tremendous act," said Leonard. "They (the delegates) set the tone that education is important, that education is the No. 1 priority."

By approving the act, he said, "they took a true stand in closing the achievement gap."

The act, sponsored by Education Committee Vice Chairman Wallace Charley (Shiprock), was not so popular with all the delegates, however. Nineteen of them voted against it. Ten did not vote at all.

Among the less enamored was Ervin Keeswood.

The Hogback delegate said he liked the act overall, but thought it needed work.

"I personally believe that this is a good document, but it needs to be cleaned up," he said.

Language addressing potential conflict of interest among board members, the need for staggered terms and the removal of board members for just cause were just some of the things he said the act was missing.

Keeswood suggested the council hold off on its vote to give each of the tribe's standing legislative committees more time to consider ways to strengthen the act. Back in January, the first time the act came up fore a vote, the council decided to put off its decision until July. This time, the delegates decided they'd delayed their decision long enough and voted Keeswood down.

But that did not erase the problems some delegates had with the act.

Keeswood said he was concerned about the reaction from the public schools serving Navajo students.

"This (act) will basically create a two-tiered oversight to some degree," he said, pitting the tribe against the three states serving its students Arizona, New Mexico and Utah in ways that could lead them to court.

If it's sovereignty the tribe wants, he said, it ought to pursue full control over the education of all Navajo students right away.

The Navajo Sovereignty in Education Act, despite what its name might suggest, does not do that. It reorganizes and renames the tribe's Education Division and gives it new responsibilities. But to exercise any more influence over what happens inside the schools teaching its students, the tribe will need the approval of the government agencies running those schools now.

The tribe will also have to find the money to fund the act. Leonard said the reorganization could cost up to $1 million to implement in the first year alone.

Some school districts fear the tribe will try to confiscate their funds to pay its new bills. But the act the council approved Tuesday afternoon actually makes no mention of where the money would come from, a point of concern for some.

But Leonard does not sound worried.

If he can convince the Bureau of Indian Affairs to delegate some authority over its 66 schools on the Navajo reservation to the tribe, that new responsibility should come with new money. Leland said he also submitted a plan to Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. asking for $700,000 from the tribe's general fund for the first year. Although Shirley who has called education the No. 1 priority of his administration supports the act, appropriating the money will be up to the council. The education division director also hopes to direct a fraction of any future gaming revenue the tribe might earn to his new department.

As for setting up that department, the first big step will be getting the new board of education in place. The six members appointed by the president should be in place by October 1. Leland said the five elected members one from each of the reservation's agencies will be chosen whenever the tribe holds its elections for president and council delegates next year.